Riyadh, January 10 (BNA): Sebastien Loeb gave Bahrain Red Extreme a second consecutive stage win at the Dakar Rally today as Prodrive Hunters dominated the matches with a 1-2-3 finish in Saudi Arabia.
Teaming up with Fabien Lorquin, Loeb took his third win at this year’s event on the 358-kilometre ninth stage from Riyadh to Haradh to cement his challenge of finishing on the podium in his BRX Prodrive Hunter.
Loeb was fastest from the start, and set the pace almost all day, briefly ceding the lead to Prodrive Hunter of Vaidotas Zala at one point, and eventually beating the Lithuanian into second place by 57 seconds. This was despite a time penalty of 2 minutes 10 seconds.
The third stage winners, Guerlain Chicherit and Alex Winocq, set the third fastest Prodrive Hunter time, making it the fifth consecutive stage in which a trio of sustainable fuel cars finished in the top ten.
Loeb’s 19th Dakar Rally win moved him up to third overall, as Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah, who had been leading by nearly nine minutes on day eight, extended his overall advantage to 1 hour 21 minutes 57 seconds in his Toyota. Brazilian Lucas Moraes.
While a string of previous setbacks has left Loeb 1 hour 43 minutes behind Al-Attiyah, the nine-time World Rally Champion now leads the Qatari in the World Rally Championship points standings, with five more stages remaining in the opening round of the year.
After the rest day in Riyadh, the day’s stage passed cars through valleys, presenting a difficult navigational test, and puddles of water left by recent rains, before traversing a group of sand dunes leading to the finish.
There was dual drama early on as second-placed Henk Latigan lost around 40 minutes when mechanical problems stopped his Toyota and Carlos Sainz spun the Audi who had led the race in the first two stages.
Sainz was initially airlifted toward the hospital for a check-up, but later told the helicopter to turn around and collect him and co-driver Lucas Cruz to resume the rally.
Loeb finished the stage to say: “We had a little moment when we had a problem on the road section, but then I tried really hard to make it a good stage. It was very difficult for the navigation and we lost some time in three or four places, but it was difficult for everyone because the lines Motorcycles were wrong.”
Zala commented: “It was a good day. We started 10th and when we started passing cars I knew we were going to be ok. The valleys with lots of water were the only dangerous places. We decided to go straight at one point and almost got stuck there “.
Shishrit said: “The car was great as always, but it was upset with Alex and me because we made a mistake, got lost, took a lot of time to get back on track. We also had to change a flat tire. We had good pace, but we are a bit upset “.
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